Opposites

I was talking to a tech support guy yesterday who mentioned that his weather was uncomfortably hot. He was in Manila. I was in Minnesota, ten below. You know how it is when you're a writer? That immediately made me think of characters in a novel. If I write one character as being thus-and-so, how exciting it would be to make another character the total opposite--but neither one of them totally good or bad. Or both totally bad? Now there's a concept. What's the difference between a gang of violent muggers beating a prostitute to death and a gang of loving Christians stoning a whore to death?

Poetry Out Loud

---I judged a Minnesota State Arts Board Poetry Out Loud regional competition yesterday. Seeing the extraordinarily talented readings was wonderful. It's a tough challenge. Competitors must put full meaning in their selected poems, without sliding into dramatic interpretation. There are two rounds, the contestants delivering a different poem in each round. For the first time in my life I heard someone do Poe's "Annabel Lee" without being trapped by the poet's horrible doggerel and without making it sound like a total dirge. It wasn't all roses, however; one competitor missed the boat on Frost's "Mending Wall," seeing it as a very sad occasion as opposed to a wry observation on long-held customs.

Whoa! What's this?

I paid $45.00 for a one-year subscription to a writers' trade magazine. Although it looked slick and colorful on the web site, my first issue was 15 stapled pages of black print on white 8 1/2x11 paper. I'm hoping the material therein is solid gold. It may be, I say to myself. After all, I've been to all-day multi-session writers' festivals which were almost not worth my time.... except for that one little thing a presenter said that opened my mind to a world of possibilities. So... for a while I'm not going to judge the book by its cover... er, the magazine by its cheap, photocopied, unimpressive look.

Kindle covers

While going through NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE, tweaking out the little pieces of over-writing, I find a few word choices that aren't right. Isn't it amazing/wonderful that after leaving a work alone for a while, when you come back, the "wrong" words leap out and smack you in the face? "Whoa! Did I write that? Louise would never use that term!"

I'm shooting for a Kindle launch and just got word from my potential cover designer that the four weeks I calculated for his design services may be more like eight weeks. What to do about that? Patiently wait because he's very good? Or switch over to 99designs?

Another Farce

Finished my 2nd farce, ULTIMATE GLAMOUR. 5 women, 3 men. A hotel room, 2 ladies in the "personal entertainment industry," a bellhop in the pool, a Girl Scout leader, a disguised bakery investor, a philandering corporate exec. a suspicious wife, a mousy secretary with an eidetic memory, and a nice guy caught up in the middle. I'm looking for theatres to give it a shakedown performance. Spread the word.

Yes, I'm still working on the narrative play, SLEEPER, but that's on the back burner while I finish other projects---the Minnesota Writers' Alliance newsletter for one.

Always getting better.

I'm going through a novel I finished two years ago, NICE GIRLS DON'T BITE. Good news is that I've gotten better at writing and can immediately spot and kick out the over-writing. Bad news? Although it was re-written many times back then, it still has spots of over-writing. Really good news? It still hangs together as a campy funny story.

I ask myself what writer fault is the most certain indication of amateurishness. I don't think it's grammar, spelling and the like. Those are merely indications of lack of education. Over-writing is certainly one of the top nominees, including its twin sibling, data dump. Perhaps lack of variety in sentence structure. And, oh my aunt Tilly, let's not forget unnecessary dialogue tags!

e-books

All right! ---I probably sound like such a weinie at times, but... I just discovered that one could pay people to configure a book for Kindle, etc. Whew! I read the Amazon instructions and was boggled. AND.... pay a really good professional to design the cover. Life is good!